Getting Back into Training

We’ve all had times in our busy lives when training takes a back seat – perhaps a promotion at work that calls for longer hours and working weekends, maybe you’ve been travelling or completed a race or competition a few months ago and not taken your fitness too seriously after that. The training room’s personal trainer courses can help if you’re wanting to get your fitness right on track, but in the meantime read on for some top tips on how to get back into training after time out.

The hardest thing about getting back into the swing of things is actually going to the gym and doing your first training session – so if you’ve already done this then you’ve cracked it! You just need to start working on technique again. If you haven’t quite mustered up that motivation yet – come on, you know you’ve got it in you!

The worst thing you can do is to kid yourself that you’ll be able to do the same routine just as easily as you did before you stopped – don’t kill yourself trying to PB on your first session back; this is only likely to de-motivate you. Remember – it’s NORMAL to not be as good as you were before you took a break (otherwise – there would be no need for training!). As soon as you can accept that fact, the easier training will become.

Assess your performance levels so you know how hard you’re going to have to work to get you back up to speed. You can trick your mind into how fit you feel but only your body will tell the truth – listen to your body and don’t push it too hard in the first few sessions.

Focus on consistency, not perfection. As soon as you can get in to consistent training that becomes habitual and integrated into your daily routine it will feel natural again. This is way more important than smashing one so-say ‘perfect’ training session and then avoiding the gym for the next week.

The length of time to get your fitness back up to what it was at your peak will obviously differ from person to person. Some people will fall back into their regime after a handful of sessions, others have known to take a couple of months – it just depends what you are training for and your ultimate fitness goal at the end.

But – you will improve. We promise. Just keep at it, and pat yourself on the back – getting back into training can be tough, especially as our minds tend to recall the most gruelling of sessions, but stick at it. You can do it!